


Tertiary

by Desdemon



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-28
Updated: 2007-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desdemon/pseuds/Desdemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for slodwick's <a href="http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/">picfor1000</a> challenge.  Based on this picture:</p><p><img/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tertiary

"I swear, Doctor, you just aren't objective on the subject!"

The Doctor whirled around to face Turlough. "I am perfectly objective on all subjects, Turlough, except the ones that hold no benefit for so being," he said.

"And there's no benefit here," Turlough prompted him.

"None that I can see. This is my ship, she's been with me a long time, and you've no right to talk about her in that manner."

"She's kidnapped Tegan, Doctor!"

"Nonsense!" the Doctor said, though his face betrayed some considerable doubt. "She wouldn't do that. Tegan's simply lost."

"Objectivity!" Turlough said, pointing accusingly at the Doctor. "If you had it, you would have stopped arguing with me an hour ago and been one ounce of helpful, you infuriating..."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

" _Man,_ " Turlough finished, too frustrated to make it really sting.

"Hardly," the Doctor said loftily. Then he pointed at Turlough and moved towards the console. "And neither are you. Whereas Tegan is. In the universal sense of the term, naturally. And while you and I have at our disposal a superior knowledge of space travel, Tegan - poor, wayward Tegan - is left with nothing. Hence, she is lost."

Turlough folded his arms and watched incredulously as the Doctor pressed buttons and twisted knobs. "If only she had been living on a spaceship for months on end. How it would have helped her to gain her bearings."

" _Time_ ship, thank you," the Doctor said, without looking around. "Many a better person than Tegan has gotten turned around in these corridors."

"Was the TARDIS by chance pissed off at them, as well?"

The Doctor finally did look back at him, and Turlough could see that, when he wasn't being an absolute wally, the Doctor could, perhaps, to his enemies, be a threatening person. "Have a look," the Doctor said stonily, gesturing at the console.

Turlough walked forward, sensing a trap, and sure enough, as he looked down at the display, the Doctor leaned in. Turlough was set to jump away, but then the Doctor whispered into his ear, "You're making it worse," and drew away, which was a bit of a disappointment.

Turlough said, "You have a life-signs detector?"

"It's usually broken," the Doctor said in a more normal tone.

"And you've fixed it," Turlough said, not believing that for a second, and meanwhile feeling a sort of vicious glee that not only _had_ the TARDIS kidnapped Tegan, as he'd thought, but the Doctor was clearly at the mercy of her TARDISy will.

"Not in the slightest," the Doctor replied gaily. "The TARDIS is giving this to us as a peace offering, aren't you, old girl?" He patted the console. "She can't have kidnapped Tegan. There Tegan is, right there on the display." He raised his eyebrows very slightly at Turlough.

Turlough bent to look, playing along. And then he noticed: "Doctor, there are seventeen other life signs in that room."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Ah. Yes, well, that would probably be the zoological wing of the TARDIS, then."

" _What?_ " Turlough couldn't believe his ears. "You have _live animals_ onboard this ship?"

"Of a sort," the Doctor said, somewhat defensively. While Turlough stared, he protested, "It's a complex situation. They're more like temporary boarders. In any case, I'm sure that Tegan is perfectly safe in there."

"You're sure?" Turlough repeated. "Your TARDIS has trapped Tegan in a zoo filled with wild animals. How do you know she hasn't been, I don't know, torn apart by now?"

"Hardly a member of that party is carnivorous, and besides -" The Doctor stopped himself, and then he leaned over, undoubtably to inform Turlough that he'd just implicated the TARDIS in the kidnapping again, but the proximity of his mouth was just too tempting this time, so Turlough turned his head to meet the Doctor's lips with his own.

It was rather sexily accidental, Turlough thought.

When the Doctor drew away, it was only enough to whisper, "Well, I hope you're happy. She'll never give us Tegan back now."

Turlough kissed him again, quickly, while he was still sure the Doctor wouldn't pull back, and then whispered, "What, is she jealous?"

"Madly," the Doctor breathed, and then Turlough got kissed, which was a nice surprise.

"Well," the Doctor said at last, when he looked over at the console. "The life signs detector has broken, somehow, in the last minute or so, so let's begin the journey on foot, shall we?"

"Now, when you say 'journey,'" Turlough began, tugging at his tie, which had begun to feel a bit tight in recent moments.

"Not to worry," the Doctor said, waving dismissively. "It never takes me more than a maximum of three hours."

Turlough rolled his eyes and headed for the door. "Now I know you're putting me on."

"Er, not really," the Doctor said from behind him.

Turlough ground his teeth together and refrained from saying anything that would further anger the TARDIS.

Somewhere around the end of hour one, Turlough asked, "Doctor?"

The Doctor interrupted his own closed-mouth rendition of Beethoven's Fifth to reply with, "Hmm?"

"If... things... are jealous, and Tegan is... lost, then am I to understand that you, and she...?"

The Doctor simply raised his eyebrows at Turlough.

"Surprising," Turlough commented.

"How so?" the Doctor inquired, off-handedly.

"I just thought you hated each other, that's all."

"If that logic were sound, your own case would be much harder to make," the Doctor said calmly, and he proffered his hand.

A bit surprised, Turlough took it. The Doctor's hand was heavy, and warm, and pleasant in his.

He was half-expecting it when the TARDIS rumbled, somewhat ominously. He smiled when the power sputtered indignantly out.


End file.
